This is a detail shot of my first finished cloth from a weaving class taken a few years back, cotton weft and warp, woven on a Schacht 4-shaft table loom rented from my weaving guild. I now own quite a few looms--both table and rigid heddle looms and one beautiful cherry wood floor loom.
Here are the latest additions to my yarn stash, acquired last weekend at The Black Sheep in Encinitas, California. One is a blue and gray novelty cotton and nylon yarn called Rumba Mix, by Katia, made in Spain. The soft yellow is a cotton baby yarn, M & K Eco Baby Bomull, from the Netherlands. The pink (shown below) is Mulberry Silk by Laines du Nord, made in Italy. A veritable tour of the European Union, and I only had to travel a few miles north....
I'm not sure what I will make out of these tempting skeins, but I am leaning toward fun fashions for Blythe!
I spent some time yesterday working up a gauge swatch with my Ragamuffin cotton rag yarn for a rug project. This is knit in garter stitch on size 15 (US) knitting needles. I may tweak it up to a size 17, because the garter stitch is so dense. This would make a great bath mat or small rug near the kitchen sink.
I decided to use the golden ratio to determine a pleasing rectangular size rug. I'm no mathematician, but the fiberarts often encourage me to branch out and apply all that stuff learned in school.
I'll alternate colorful yarn skeins every two rows or so for a stripey effect. I gravitate toward the scrappy look in quilts, too.
We fiberartists can dream, can't we?
Featured here is one of my latest Ragamuffin handspun primitive cotton rag yarns, named after my Dad's Mom, Molly. She was one of my original fiberarts mentors. I remember her patience as she taught me how to embroider on her front porch on lazy summer afternoons when I was a very little girl.
Somewhere in my archives I have a portrait of her that I wrote a dozen years ago in a memoir class. I'll have to excavate it from my files and share bits of it here.
And, as I discovered in my genealogical pursuits this past year, Molly comes from French/Mosellan stock, making me feel "Oh, so very French!" these days.
The simplest of all knitting projects, a garter stitch washcloth of self-striping Sugar 'n Cream cotton is one of life's timeless delights. I've been invited to join Ravelry, and I'm getting my knitting muscles back into shape slowly.
I made this the other day as a sort of meditation on simplicity. I was trying out my new square needles (size 8 US), and I enjoyed the process immensely. As a bonus, I get to use it tonight in the shower with some equally delightful handmade soap. Life is good!
I have been having lots of fun making handspun rag yarn over the last few months. I like the larger skeins, but I wanted to create and play with miniature Ragamuffin skeins, too. I spun up six of them last night and they are just too cute! Each one is about 10 yards/9 meters of handspun goodness for any primitive project you might have in mind. I'll be developing simple patterns to use with these yarns, but frankly, I like 'em just as skeins, like little vintage rag balls in this bowl.
The Germans have a phrase, "ein Ding in sich" (a thing unto itself), which I believe describes these little skeins. You are not required to do anything with them, simply enjoy!
My sister and I have discovered a brand-new tool by Clover which makes creating yo-yo's for quilting a simple process. We've both been quilters for over ten years, and have quite a stash of quilting fabrics to use in our yo-yo mania.
The set of Clover tools we've acquired is getting a major workout! My sister has a new handbag in mind for her steadily increasing number of yo-yo's. I haven't decided yet what I will do with mine, but I like the idea of making little brooches with them. I adorned one with a favorite faceted amazonite bead. We dipped into our stash of silk dupioni, too, and created some gleamy silk confections. I want to dip some of those into a dyebath and see what happens. I'll keep you posted.
Here is an array of equipment and tools from my fiber arts studio. In addition to my designated studio area at home, I can sometimes be found working in the yard, on my little porch, at a community center with a few of my fiber friends, or at my local Starbucks. My little bungalow is bursting at the seams with my fiber goodies!
Missing from this collage are the many volumes of books and magazines in my personal library. I'm gradually cataloging them all at LibraryThing.
Fiberarts are the answer.
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"Setting the twist" of a handspun yarn can be accomplished by steaming, but more commonly it is done by washing and drying the newly spun yarn once it has been secured with ties into a loose skein form.
I wash the Ragamuffin yarn by hand in a small wash tub like the ones my grandmothers and great-grandmothers used. Next I feed each skein through a hand-wringer to remove the rinse water.
One of my dearest friends (who loves hand-laundering) encouraged me to buy the hand-wringer from the Lehman's catalog a few years ago. It has been an indispensable tool in the making of my Ragamuffin yarn.